Earlier this week, we found out that the direct sequel to Marvel Studios’ Spider-Man: Homecoming will kick off a new era of the Marvel Cinematic Universe by showing Tom Holland’s Spider-Man dealing with the aftermath of the upcoming Avengers movies. But that connection will be even more explicit than we thought: according to producer Amy Pascal, the opening of Spider-Man Homecoming 2 (or whatever it ends up being called) will pick up only “a few minutes” after the events of Avengers 4.

In an interview with Fandom in which the interviewer attempts to squeeze some information out of Pascal regarding Sony’s upcoming Venom movie, the producer tried to steer the conversation back to the cinematic hero of the moment and revealed an interesting tidbit in the process:

“What I think we should focus on is this Spider-Man who started in Civil War and then has this movie [Homecoming], and then will be in the Avengers movie. And we are starting now the next one which will start a few minutes after Avengers 4 wraps as a story.”

What does that mean for Spider-Man?

“Like how the events of Captain America: Civil War impacted Peter as he was dropped off by Tony and expected to go back to continue his sophomore year, how the hell are the events of Infinity War and Untitled [Avengers] going to affect him as he, yes, goes back to his junior year?”

It’s clear that Spider-Man survives the battle with Thanos. But we don’t know what other heroes make it out of that conflict alive. So it’s time for some good old-fashioned speculation.

Imagine, if you will, that Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark, a mentor and friend to young Peter Parker, sacrifices himself to defeat Thanos and ends up dying in the process of taking down the MCU’s ultimate big bad. That would solve a practical problem for Marvel Studios (read: they wouldn’t have to pay RDJ exorbitant amounts of money to appear in their movies anymore), and from a story perspective, it would send shockwaves through future films. No other Avenger would be more deeply impacted by Stark’s death than Spider-Man, who looks up to him as a father figure.

If Marvel chooses to go that route, the Homecoming sequel could open with a heartbroken Peter reeling from the loss of Stark that theoretically would have happened just minutes before. That would follow a long-standing tradition of the second movie in a trilogy being a darker, Empire Strikes Back-style exploration of its main character and the world they live in. And without his mentor there to help, Peter would face an organic obstacle that would allow him to grow, gain more agency, and become a more dynamic character as the MCU continues to chug forward.